Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Some names are easy. Opal Jones in As She Left It had her name when she popped into my head. The working title for the story was Opal Jones Comes Home; it's a terrible name for a mystery but it's fun to say and I said it about ten times a day while I was working on the first draft. And she looks like an Opal.

Late on in the final draft, I realised that I couldn't have a character, in the same book as Opal, who was called Olive. That leads me to one of the few pieces of writing advice I will stand by, no matter what: when changing a character's name from Olive to Norah via global search and replace, watch out for scenes with pizza.

It's not always as easy as Opal Jones. The heroine of the book I'm working on now was born as Tash Harkness and, no matter how I wooed her, she wouldn't come out and show herself. Then I changed her name to Gloria Morrison and boom! She was fifteen years older, with a different job, a completely different personality and a new story she wouldn't shut up about. I feel a bit sorry for Tash Harkness, though, floating around in limbo. Maybe she'll parachute into a new story one day.

I suppose the most important names to get right are those you're going to be living with, year in and year out, in a series, til you're ancient and bitter and dead (it's going well; thanks for asking). And I'm okay with Dandy Gilver. It's unusual enough to be memorable but it's plain enough not be annoying when I type it for the thousandth time.

You've got feel for Agatha Christie, who got so sick of Hercule Poirot that she ended up parodying herself in the character of Ariadne Oliver, who invented a Finnish detective called Sven Hjerson. Some of the irritation was about nationality - Oliver knew as little about Finland as Christie knew about Belgium - but "Hercule" and "Poirot" can't have helped, right?

Some of my favourite names are just flat-out stolen. In the first draft of A Bothersome Number of Corpses I named a gaggle of characters after my brand-new California friends. I always meant to change the names once I had time to research them, but with only a tweak or two these 21st-century American women made perfect 1920s Scottish schoolgirls. Sally Madden was fine, Katie Howard was fine, Eileen Rendahl became the slightly less Scandinavian Eileen Rendall, Stella Ruiz became the quite a lot less Latina (and very posh) Stella Rowe-Issing. Spring Warren worried if maybe "Spring" wasn't a name then. I reassured her that it's not a name now.

And in the newest Dandy Gilver, The Reek of Red Herrings, I've pinched another one. A friend, going through family papers while settling an estate, found an ancestor called Euphemia Clatchie and immediately emailed me. I challenge anyone to think "Euphemia Clatchie" and not get a clear picture of her. Sometimes characters just write themselves . . .

The Name Game

by Clare O'Donohue

Q: Do you give careful thought to the names of your characters or do you draw them out of a hat?My mother wanted to name me Madonna, after her eldest sister who had become a Franciscan nun. My father didn't care for it, so I got named after the county in Ireland where he had been born. Explaining the spelling of my name has taken up a fair amount of my time, but at least no one suggests I wear a cone bra and gyrate on stage, so a bullet dodged.As a result, I take the name thing pretty seriously. Though, I have to admit, naming characters is usually one of my least favorite things. It feels so important - especially in a series, because I will be stuck with my choice for book after book - and yet it's so hard to embody everything you want to say in just the right name.Many times I've taken names from people I know. Kate Conway, for example, is named after Kathleen Sweeney, my aunt, who is an incredibly kind woman with a very sarcastic wit. I wanted Kate to be similar. Conway is my grandmother's maiden name, and it felt right to honor that part of my family. After I published Missing Persons, I heard from several distant cousins in England who I had not met, or known, before. Two of them, you guessed it, were named Kate Conway. I thought I was being clever but really I was just using a name that had, apparently, been part of my family for generations.Vera, the girlfriend of Kate's late husband, is actually the name of my Aunt Kathleen's sister. Though they share no qualities in common, it sort of slipped into my consciousness as a good name, and thankfully the real Vera felt honored by the inclusion rather than offended to be the other woman in my book. Andres Pena and Victor Pilot, the other main characters, were specific choices. I wanted Andres to have a Hispanic name so I kept mixing and matching the first and last names of friends, and did a Google search on names, until I found what I wanted. I knew Victor's last name, Pilot, would be a lie - something he made up to sound cool, so I played around until that popped in my head.On the Someday Quilts series, I did less work. Nell Fitzgerald just was... and Eleanor Cassidy, her grandmother, also came to me as a name, fully formed. When I realized Nell could be an abbreviation for Eleanor, I decided that Nell was named after her - a happy accident! I pulled the other names from a combination of first or last names of friends and relatives (Maggie Sweeney is a cousin's first name, and my mom's maiden name), or just "out of a hat". Jessie Dewalt, though, is my quiet homage to Jessica Fletcher in Murder She Wrote. I decided to use an abbreviation of her first name but give it to a male character to remind myself that, though he isn't my main sleuth, he's pretty darn good at detective work.Right now I'm planning a new series, a husband and wife team, and I've changed their names half a dozen times as I've tried to come up with the right monikers for two very connected, but very different people. Just like with a child, you never know if the name you choose will really fit the person they become, so you have to pick what you like and hope for the best.... or have someone intervene so you don't end up having to say Madonna O'Donohue for the rest of your life (Try it, it's a mouthful.)

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Question
of the Week: What’s
in a name? Do you give careful thought to the names of your
characters or do you draw them out of a hat?

My Answer: Usually
they come from left field, popping onto the page along with the
character. Clare Vengel, the chain-smoking, motorcycle-riding heroine
of my detective series, arrived with her name and her trailer park
backstory fully formed.

Sometimes
a name is inspired by a song. Martha Westlake, a US Senator inDeath's Last Run,
was inspired by the Tom Waits song “Martha.” (I picture the
heroine of the song as a relatively closed person with a richer inner
life than she lets on.)

T-Bone
Jones in Death Plays Pokeris
an abbreviated version of the nickname my husband gives to any poker
player he sees in a cowboy hat on TV. (The full name he gives them is
T-Bone Double-down Dogday Jones.)

And
sometimes, a name can inspire the plot. In Death's
Last Run,
Clare is undercover as a snowboarder named Lucy Lipton. No, she did not inspire any iced tea, but one day while I was
driving, mulling plot questions and singing along to The Beatles'
“Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds,” I got the idea that it might be cool to
introduce an LSD subplot into the story—which ended up being the
missing link the book needed to tie all the characters together.While I don't always put a ton of thought into the creation of a name, a character would not be the same person if you called them something else.

Monday, July 28, 2014

What’s in a name? So much I hardly know where to begin. I have to admit, first
off, that I come up short if
I count on my own fertile imagination: John, Mary, Smith, Jones…I tend to blank
out. Early on, someone recommended the phone book, but that’s too many choices.
I was paralyzed after reading a whole page looking for a perfect name to steal.
There are online name sites that can be fun and they are particularly good if
you’re searching for popular names in a given year or decade (very few Ednas in
1991, but America was drowning in Ashleys that year) or foreign names, as I
have been doing for my story set in France.

I like names that give off a whiff of the character, but
didn’t realize how close I’d come in my first book with “Winship (Win) Thorne”
until one of my sons, both of whom far surpass me in linguistic skills, pointed
out that the man with the dark drive to score big and the prickly personality
was well named.

Have you noticed what I realized after bonding with my
series protagonist, Danielle O’Rourke, usually known as Dani, that many female
protagonists have gender-ambiguous names? Georgie, Kinsey, Jerri, Munch…could
go on, but I think the underlying and perhaps unconscious aim is to avoid rendering
them too stereotypically soft to deal with murderers while allowing their
voices to remain female.

Sometimes, I’ll be well into a manuscript when I notice the
character name doesn’t fit the personality that’s emerging. I thank the writing
gods for the Search and Replace function when that happens, when the character
turns out not to be a charming Robby but a manipulative Leroy.* It's odd how much the wrong name gets me off balance. Sometimes I'm not even sure what's slowing me down until I type it for the hundredth time and suddenly realize I can't see this character - he or she has become opaque to me. And I had an annoying experience recently when the perfectly named character had to have her name changed. It was Cherry, which someone pointed out was too much like cherie, the French term of endearment everyone in scenes she's in tosses around. Oh, rats.

What's in a name? Everything.

*For all the non-manipulative Leroys out there, this is
where I assure you that responses to names are subjective, fickle, and say more
about the person having the response than the named subject.

Friday, July 25, 2014

Just as research offers a tantalizingly provocative pull—that work before the writing too often keeping us from the writing itself—so too might craft books pose some risk: lulling us into some illusion of productivity because we're immersing ourselves in thinking about craft even if we're not actually crafting anything, right? and we're being exposed to fresh perspectives and new skills, aren't we? and then there are those exercises I finished—like writing five hundred words about a man looking up at a mountain while grieving the loss of his dead brother (without mentioning the man, the mountain, the brother, or the words grief, loss, or death)—those count for something, don't they? (Thanks, John Gardner.)

Actually, while some folks (my wife, for one) might turn their noses up at books about writing, I often find them fascinating, and I firmly believe that my own work has been strongly influenced by what I've learned from a handful of writing craft guides. So I'm pleased to offer not just one but four different suggestions in response to this week's question: "What's your favorite writing craft book of all time?"

Each of the books below have offered me something different and specific:

Janet Burroway's Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craftwas the first craft book in the first writing seminar I participated in—and still stands as the most comprehensive analysis of the different aspects of a short story or novel: character, plot, setting, time, point of view, etc. etc. A central, indispensable reference.

In other news: Three of your Criminal Minds bloggers—Meredith, Alan, and I—will be participating in the first-ever Washington, DC Noir at the Bar event this Sunday, July 27, 8 p.m. at the Wonderland Ballroom. The full line-up also includes E.A. Aymar, Tom Kaufman, Nik Korpon, Don Lafferty, Tara Laskowski, Michael R. Underwood, and Steve Weddle. Full details here!

Thursday, July 24, 2014

Over the years, I’ve read a number of books devoted to the craft of writing. As you might imagine, many have been helpful (to me), while others haven’t, but even in those less worthwhile volumes, I think I’ve always been able to find at least a nugget or two of valuable writing wisdom.

As with most things in life, you need to be careful about what advice to follow (but it doesn’t hurt to listen and read widely).

On Monday, Meredith mentioned two of my favorite books:

On Writing, by Stephen King

And Bird by Bird, by Ann Lamott (although I would classify this as being more of an inspirational writing book than a craft book).

Let me add a few (random) others:

For those wanting to pen a best-seller:

How to Write Best Selling Fiction, by Dean Koontz

A long (long) time ago, back before I even really wanted to be a writer, I picked up a book by Dean Koontz (one of my favorite authors at the time), mapping out how to become a best-seller. For some reason, it’s out of print now, but you can pick up a used copy on Amazon for a mere $68.

For those wanting to write a “breakout” novel:

Writing the Breakout Novel, by Donald Maass

This book also has an accompanying workbook (which I haven’t used).

For those who have trouble differentiating writing in summary versus writing in scenes:

Scene & Structure, by Jack Bickham

When I first started writing fiction, I didn’t know what I was doing. This book helped (a lot!).

*********

APPEARANCE NEWS

Want to see three Criminal Minds, in person, reading their work, AT A BAR?

D.C. area folks will have that chance, this Sunday night at the inaugural D.C. Noir, 8 p.m. at The Wonderland Ballroom. Meredith, Art, and I, along with seven other great writers (Nik Korpon, Steve Weddle, Ed Aymar, Tom Kaufman, Don Lafferty, Tara Laskowski, and Michael R. Underwood), will take turns reading and schmoozing. Come on by—a good time will be had by all.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Like many of us, when I first tried my hand at
fiction writing I knew very little about the craft. With my mind brimming with story
ideas, I was too impatient to get started, so rather than spending time
learning about the craft, I sat down at my computer and started tapping away at
the keyboard. At some point I realized I needed to know more about creative
writing techniques, so I bought a few books, which I did find very helpful.
Unfortunately, they have long since gone astray and as helpful as they were, I
can’t remember their particulars, like title or author. Sorry.

But I can tell you about the one thing that
influenced me greatly as a writer. It was a course I took fairly early on in my
writing career. It was a week long intensive writing workshop that covered much
more than the creative writing process. It was also the first time I came out of the closet so to
speak and declared myself a writer.Up until then the only person who knew I was trying my hand at writing
was my husband. It was also my first exposure to other aspiring authors. At
that time I didn’t know anyone who either wrote fiction or wanted to, so I really enjoyed finally being able to talk about writing with
like minded people. It was a game changer and it helped confirm my decision to
become a writer.

The summer workshop was offered by Humber College’s
School of Creative Writing located in Toronto. The day was split into two
components. The morning was devoted to the writing workshops in which we
students were divided into small groups and paired with a well known author,
who led the workshop. This included discussions on creative writing techniques
and critiques of the writing samples we had submitted as a requirement of
registration.

The afternoons were spent learning about the
publishing world from the experts; publishers, editors and agents. The workshop
leaders also spoke about their writing process. They also had a panel of first
time published authors sharing their stories on getting published. We were even
given tips on how to do a reading, should we be so lucky to reach that point, and
given the opportunity to actually do one, should we brave enough to put our hand
up.

All in all, it was a fabulous week, well worth
the money. I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to become a fiction
writer. When I attended, the workshop was offered in the summer. I notice now
that it is held in the Fall. I can't get the link working so here is the url if you want to learn more.

Monday, July 21, 2014

I admit that one of my time honored procrastination technique is to read books about writing. I tell myself it's to get myself unstuck, or to see if I want to use a new book with the class I'm teaching this fall, but really it's because I'm avoiding actually getting some work done. Occasionally I find a wonderful nugget in a writing book that does help me get unstuck or helps me look at writing in a new way, and then that book becomes a keeper.

Although I recommend On Writing by Stephen King (you think writing is hard? Try doing it when you're in constant pain...) and You Can Write a Mystery by Gillian Roberts (a short helpful book that is now available again as an ebook) to my mystery classes, my favorite writing book of all time is still Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.

Two big and valuable pieces of advice that Lamott gives: Take a project one step at a time and try not
to panic about how big it is when you start. Tell yourself you only have to write some tiny amount of words or just fill up a little square on the screen if you're reluctant to get started. And then let yourself write terrible first
drafts. The second is something I recommend quite a bit. I've seen far too many promising writers get stuck in an eddy where they perpetually write and rewrite their first chapter ad nauseum and never finish their book. This can sadly go on for years.

Although I don't consult Bird by Bird much these days, I recommend it to beginning writers because she addresses some of the problems we all have when we try out something new. Adults who are accustomed to dashing off an email or writing a contract with no problems suddenly find themselves paralyzed at the idea of making something up and writing something as large as a novel. For me, it was transitioning from screenwriting to novel writing, and not having the least idea how to begin--just knowing that every sentence I wrote was terrible compared to what I was used to reading in published books. But eventually I realized that I had to write a terrible first draft in order to eventually get a polished and wonderful final draft.

Friday, July 18, 2014

If you had a chance to work in law enforcement, which area would see yourself in and why? The coroner’s office? Homicide division? Beat cop? Criminal psychologist? Private investigator? Defense attorney?by Paul D. Marks

Of the list above, I know which I absolutely would not want to do: Defense attorney: Even Alan Dershowitz concedes that most defendants are guilty. And I couldn't defend a guilty party, especially because the tactics used by the defense are often despicable – particularly when they try to throw the blame on another clearly innocent party to confuse the issue and throw doubt on their often clearly guilty clients. I just could not defend a rapist or a murderer. So, no defense attorney for me. Maybe that’s why I wrote my story L.A. Late @ Night that appeared originally in Murder on Sunset Boulevard (and recently republished in a collection of my stories also called L.A. Late @ Night) about a defense attorney who has second thoughts when she realizes her client is guilty and decides to do something about it...

That leaves the rest of the list:

Coroner's office: Well, I've seen my fair share of blood and guts. That said, I'm also the kind of person who whenever they hear/see symptoms of a disease decides they have that disease. Which is why I can't watch shows like ER or Grey's Anatomy. I guess I can handle blood and guts to some extent, but not symptoms. I think this is what happens with medical students (so maybe I should have been a doctor). So, nope, coroner's office is kaput.

Homicide division: Now we're getting closer. The idea of solving cases and bringing the bad guys to justice strikes home with me. Yeah, I could do that. Third degree and all, with a new energy-saving bulb of course.

Beat cop: Nah. Dealing with all the bad and crazy people you'd have to deal with would make me nuts. And I'd probably end up in the hoosegow myself. That's sort of what my story 51-50, cop slang for crazy, is about. (Originally published in the Psycho Noir issue Dave Zeltserman's Hardluck Stories anthology, but now reprinted in the L.A. Late @ Night collection.)

Criminal psychologist: While psychology interests me, to deal with all those psychos would probably make me psycho and you'd have to have a gun with a hair trigger taped under your desk aiming straight at your client...just in case. Probably not a good way to begin a relationship.

Private investigator: Yeah, now you're talking. Bring the bad guys to justice. And you get to wear a trenchcoat and fedora and use words like gat and gunsel. And slap guys like eternal weasels Elisha Cook, Jr. and Peter Lorre around. Of course, you take your fair share of beatings too, so turnabout is fair play I guess. But still, gumshoe. Has a certain ring to it, doesn't it? Or P.I., private dick, private eye, shamus, Pinkerton or Continental Op. And though he's more modern, I hope Duke Rogers, my P.I. in White Heat, carries on their tradition with grace and gats. And you get to have an office in a romantically seedy building with the proverbial flashing neon sign outside the window and the perpetual pitter patter of rain on that window that looks out to the City of Angels. Oh, and here's a happy little ditty about our fair city: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_8U93SvVyY

There's one element that was left off the list above: Prosecutor: Probably the best fit for me. A lot of people that have known me through the years say I should have been a lawyer (though I'm not sure if that's a compliment or not...),. I like the idea of being a litigator 'cause I love a good fight. Corporate law, nah. Criminal law, the D.A.'s office, sure. Being able to put the bad guys away, to argue a case. To logically prove a guilty party guilty. Prosecutor would be a good fit for me. But if I chose that route could I still wear the trenchcoat and fedora?

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

I don't think many police stations have full canteens with dinnerladies anymore. Shame, because that's about the only thing I'd be any good at.

Unless I was a forensic linguist. I actually was a linguist (non-forensic) once. MA, PhD, teaching in a university - all that. And what I saw of forensic linguistics was fascinating. Correcting miscarriages of justice using the power of grammar is just about the coolest thing in a very uncool discipline.

For instance, a forensic linguist can look at a confession and isolate then analyse elements such as sentence length, clause structure, phrase structure and vocabulary choices to build a linguistic signature for the author. It was a punch-the-air moment the first time I saw an analysed false confession, where a prisoner showed his own signature all through a long piece of discourse and then "unaccountably" started speaking exactly like one of the cops in the room when it came to the mea culpa.
There are more straightforward investigative use too, such as busting hoax 999 calls, ransom demands and even suicide notes, and it's getting easier all the time as the collected corpus of texts gets larger (what a depressing job it must be to input and tag suicide notes, mind you . . .)

When I turned to crime-writing, I scratched my head for a while wondering if I could use any of my former life as material. Could there be a forensic linguistics procedural series? It didn't take long to decide that it would be kinda one-note (like those really specific comic-book heroes who just happen to find themselves in situations where their really specific super-power is just what's needed, over and over (and over) again. Was there any other way linguistics could be useful? It didn't take long to decide "nope".

So I had no justification for feeling aggrieved when another writer - actually a team of two (which is cheating) - recently came up with a brilliant linguistics-based mystery series. Based in Britain. And historical to boot. Ouch.

Yes, I contracted a bad case of premise-envy over DE Ireland's debut Wouldn't It Be Deadly, in which Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle team up to fight crime. Curses! I read it to give a blurb, though, and in all honesty I couldn't have come up with the plot to save my life and I've never written anything as funny as the denouement. So, not at all through gritted teeth, I say three cheers for Meg Mims and Sharon Pisacreta - and roll on September and the launch day.

And - if you'll forgive some blatant BSP (since it's publication day) - it's a lot of fun ignoring the advice to write what you know and, instead, writing what you want and finding out what you need to know. 1930s fishing industry and Aberdeenshire wedding traditions? Go on - ask me anything.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Question
of the Week:
If
you had a chance to work in law enforcement, what part of the
profession would you choose?

Answer:
I would need a role that allowed me to bend the rules. I think it's
no secret that the heroes of crime fiction novels tend to be
alcoholic, womanizing, rule-breaking detectives precisely because
that's the only kind of detective a writer could see themself being.

The
problem with the justice system is that it tries to be objective, but
really there's no such thing as objective moral ground.

So
if I were a cop, I would need a role that allowed me to charge
someone with a crime not based on laws and precedents, but based on
my subjective perception of their moral culpability. Like Susan said
yesterday, I'm too empathetic (as most writers are) to be able to
coldly put someone in a hostile prison setting if I think there's any
hope for redemption if he stays outside the system. So basically, the
only role on the police force that I'd qualify for is fictional
detective.

If
I were a judge, I'd be bound by the laws of the land. The odd time,
I'd be able to set a precedent, but mostly my obligation would be to
uphold the laws of my jurisdiction.

A
criminal psychologist would be a better option. To be able to talk to
a criminal and assess their motives and mental stability would give
me more of an opportunity to suggest the right solution.

But
where I really think I'd shine is as a financially independent
criminal lawyer. As long as I was able to refuse all cases except
those where I wanted the
defendant to win (meaning where I thought society would be better off
if the defendant stayed out of jail), I would have no moral trouble
arguing innocence where I believed guilt—as long as I didn't have a
psychopath or a risk for reoffending on my hands.

Cases
I'd take:

(a)
battered spouses or children who committed murder or other violent
acts out of fear for their family's lives—too many women's prison
inmates fall into this category

(b)
people who commit crimes to take a political stance, either here or
in other countries, where the government is obtuse to what their
electorate is asking them to do

(c)
anyone who takes a stand against Monsanto or global warming, as long
as the acts they commit don't put life or innocent people's property
at risk

Monday, July 14, 2014

If you had a chance
to work in law enforcement, what part of the profession would you choose?

I can hear my friends and family snorting as they considering
this on my behalf. If ever there was a match not made in heaven it would be me
and law enforcement. So many reasons…

1.I’m
too empathetic. Really, I’m an old-fashioned, totally out of fashion bleeding
heart liberal and am sure I could be convinced that the burglar with the bag
full of Mrs. Jones’ silverware was only trying to take it to be cleaned as a
favor to her.

2.I
hate guns. Some reasons are personal; my family has been touched by gun
violence. Some reasons are practical. I’m not sure I understand the concept of
a trigger guard, and it’s not on my life list to learn. Mostly, I think how
precious life is, how hard we work to save life in other situations, and
compare it to the instantaneous blowing away of lives on TV and in the real
world.

3.In
a profession where cops, psychologists, lawyers, investigators have to make decisions, combining facts with
intuition, I would fail miserably. I noticed a few years ago that I cannot look
at a face and see the bad seed. I would see a newspaper photo of a proven
killer and think, “Oh, he’s a nice looking kid.” (I’m more accurate where
female faces are concerned. What does that say about me?)

4.I
have too much imagination. The other side of being credulous, soft-hearted, and
wary of weapons is that I have a writer’s imagination. Getting to “what if?” is
easy and fast for me, and I’d spend my whole life, were I in law enforcement,
in a nervous crouch, hand on that trigger guard, scanning faces for clues,
getting ulcers.

Best that I stay on the sidelines, writing about fictional
crime, albeit stories influenced by the over-abundance of the real thing. My
hat is off to the thousands of individuals who have careers within the overall
law enforcement field and who stay with it year after year, retaining
their compassion, professional standards, and mental and physical wellbeing. In
the immortal words of Sgt. Phil Esterhaus, the wonderful actor Michael Conrad
on ”Hill Street Blues,”

Friday, July 11, 2014

This week's question—"Do you take regular vacations from writing and if so do you enjoy them?"—prompted a number of immediate responses in my mind, several of them a little contradictory:

Because I have a less strenuous schedule during the summer break (vacation) from my teaching duties at George Mason University, I usually find more time to write then.

Despite best plans to get some reading and writing done on my recent beach vacation down in North Carolina, it was tough to carve out any time at the computer or even to jot down occasional passages or ideas in a notebook.

Getting away from the computer or the notebook—a vacation from the daily routine of writing—often frees my mind in ways that staring at the screen or the page doesn't and ultimately results in some of my best ideas.

But then showing up every day to write build momentum, keeps the mind working and focused, and....

I tried to reconcile all that, but not sure how to bring it all together very well. I do find that it helps to at least check in daily on my current project, even if each day's process or product can vary desperately from the days before or after. And as I've said in previous posts, sometimes I go long stretches without writing at all because of the pull of lesson prep or grading or whatever—not a vacation from writing certainly, not the word I would use at least. But I also find that giving the mind time to wander—usually along with giving the body some time away from the writing desk—helps to clear up thoughts and ideas and to clear the path for those little flashes of inspiration and insight.

So.... daily focus? occasional short breaks? but not a full vacation, at least not by choice?

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Oh, to put down my
pen and paper and take the summer off. But alas, my dear readers, I cannot. At
this time of year my fellow writers gleefully shrug off their comfortable writing
garb and don their linen frocks and sport coats in search of tennis games,
picnics, and long walks along the beach. I, however, must remain behind,
watching them disappear down a winding meadow lane, my grubby nose pressed up enviously
against window.

I might want to
make a note to lay off rereading of Fitzgerald and Dickens.

The reason for my
lack of summer break is quite simple. I am forever behind schedule. My mother
once told me that the road to hell was paved with good intentions and that I was
going there on the expressway. She wasn’t exaggerating.

I have long lived
with a demon that ruins all my plans. Unlike most demons who hide in the
darkness and guard their name for fear of discovery and a subsequent loss of
power, mine has a name. And that name is Yesterday Tracy.

Yesterday Tracy is
always one step ahead of Today Tracy. She is a wily, evil beast. Today Tracy is
forever behind schedule because of the actions of Yesterday Tracy. Today Tracy
might have plans to write 2,000 words, but Yesterday Tracy decided that it was
Imperative that she stays up until 3 a.m. watching Grease II.

Yes. Grease II.

I told you she was
evil.

She also has
really lousy taste.

She gleefully
tricks Today Tracy into thinking that this decision will only hurt Tomorrow Tracy not Today Tracy.

And Today Tracy
listens.

Every damn time.

And so, rather
than springing out of bed full of vim and vigor (a sensation, by the way, I
have never experienced), I roll out
of bed rubbing blood shot eyes and desperately hoping to get the song “We’re
Gonna Score Tonight!” out of my head.

Thus, I start
every day hopelessly behind schedule and must spend the remainder of the day
feeling like a desperate hamster spinning on its Sisyphus-inspired wheel.

Q&A with Criminal Minds!

Question of the Week

Each week the crime fiction authors of Criminal Minds respond to a question about writing, reading, murder and mayhem.Question of the Week:

As a writer, what do you make of readers who flip to the end and see what happens last first?

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Mondays with Susan

Susan C. Shea debuts a new series, a French village mystery, Love & Death in Burgundy in spring 2017 (St. Martin's Minotaur). The third in her Dani O'Rourke series came out in Feb. 2016. She lives in Marin County, CA.

Mondays with Terry

Terry Shames writes the Macavity Award-winning Samuel Craddock series, set in small-town Texas. In 2015 BookPeople dubbed her one of the top five Texas mystery authors.

Tuesdays with RM

RM Greenaway has worked in nightclubs, darkrooms, and courthouses. She writes the B.C. BLUES crime series, featuring RCMP detectives Leith and Dion. Her first novel COLD GIRL, winner of the 2014 Arthur Ellis Unhanged award, will be released 26 March 2016.

Tuesdays with R.J.

R.J. Harlick is the author of the acclaimed Meg Harris mystery series set in the wilds of Quebec. Her love for Canada’s untamed wilds is the inspiration for her series. The 4th book, Arctic Blue Death, was a finalist for the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel.

Wednesdays with Cathy

Cathy Ace writes the globe-trotting Cait Morgan Mysteries, (Bony Blithe winner 2015 - Agatha’s Canadian cousin), and the WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries, set in her native Wales. She lives in rural British Columbia.

Wednesdays with Dietrich

Dietrich Kalteis is the award-winning author of Ride the Lightning, The Deadbeat Club, Triggerfish and House of Blazes. His newly completed novels, Zero Avenue and Poughkeepsie Shuffle are slated for release in 2017 through his publisher ECW Press. Nearly fifty of his short stories have been published internationally, and his screenplay Between Jobs is a past-finalist in the Los Angeles Screenplay Festival. He lives with his family in West Vancouver, British Columbia and is currently working on his next novel.

Thursdays with Catriona

Catriona McPherson is the Anthony, Agatha, Macavity, IndieFab and Lefty winning author of the DANDY GILVER series set in Scotland in the 1920s, as well as two darker stand-alones AS SHE LEFT IT and THE DAY SHE DIED. Catriona lives in northern California with a black cat and a scientist.

Thursdays with Jim

James W. Ziskin (Jim to his friends) is the author of the Edgar-, Anthony-, Barry-, Lefty-, and Macavity-nominated Ellie Stone Mysteries. He's 6'2", weighs 200 pounds, and writes like a girl.

Fridays with Paul

Paul D. Marks pulled a gun on the LAPD...and lived to tell about. A former "script doctor," Paul's novel WHITE HEAT is a 2013 SHAMUS AWARD WINNER. Publishers Weekly calls WHITE HEAT a "taut crime yarn." Paul is also the author of over thirty published short stories in a variety of genres, including several award winners. GHOSTS OF BUNKER HILL, from the 12/16 Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, was voted #1 in the 2016 Ellery Queen Readers Poll.

Fridays with Danny

Danny Gardner's work has appeared in Beat to a Pulp, Out of the Gutter, and Literary Orphans Journal. His first novel, A NEGRO AND AN OFAY, will be released May 2017 by Down And Out Books. His short fiction will be featured in JUST TO WATCH HIM DIE, a Johnny Cash inspired anthology, published by Gutter Books in Winter 2016.